The Current: Cake Making Waves

As we reported on January 25, 2018, Swedish gadget heads at Cake 0 Emission not only introduced its electric off-road motorcycle production concept and a new category, Light Electric Off-Road Motorbikes, it fully delivered 50 limited-edition bikes to international customers in nine months. And man, did it sweep up design awards across multiple categories and industries, including the highly prestigious (and historically anti-motorcycle) Outdoor Retailer Innovation Awards.

Twenty horsepower equivalent, with a top speed of 46 mph, good for up to 50 miles of saddle time. [Cake 0 Emission]Now that Cake has pierced the previously impenetrable (and highly lucrative) broad-based outdoor market, what does this mean for the current wave of electric motorcycles, many of which are momentarily Insta-famous artist renderings? One hundred years ago there were several hundred motorcycle companies pushing the envelope, but only a handful remained after the dust settled and reality set in for several entrepreneurs.The Kalk is light, weighing in around 154 pounds, and uses a single pivot direct drive, reducing the number of heavy and moving parts. [Cake 0 Emission]Our publisher Paul d’Orléans was happy to feature a Cake Kalk at the wildly successful book launch party for the print version of ‘The Current’ (Gestalten), at Aether Apparel LA on October 30. On being informed that Cake had been nominated for an Innovations Award at the Outdoor Retailer (OR) Winter Market, the Vintagent team detoured to Denver, Colorado, to watch a frickin’ motorcycle being honored alongside outdoor giants like Big Agnes and Black Diamond. This is serious news for the outdoors scene: the OR represents a multi-Billion dollar industry that has kept motorcycles at arm’s length (including politically), and The Vintagent team were the first motorcycle industry representatives to cover the show, ever. I asked Paul to explain his thoughts:

“When Liz Ferrin told us at our book launch that she was organizing the Innovation Awards, and our cover girl Cake was nominated at the world’s biggest outdoor industry event, it seemed like kismet, and I knew we needed to be there. Clearly, things are changing in the outdoor world as much as in motorcycling, because the outdoor industry is notoriously hostile to off-road motorcycles. But with the flood of electric mountain bikes and now e-trail bikes, attitudes are softening…although I did hear of one judge on the Industry Awards panel who cursed the Cake; ‘What’s that F**KING motorcycle doing here?!’ Which pretty much sums up why no motorcycle industry folks have ever attended! But, we’re happy to be trailblazers, and met serious players in the industry, who were curious why we had come. I explained it seemed a no-brainer: the ADV sector of motorcycling is enormous, and they use exactly the same outdoor gear as bicyclists or backpackers. The e-ADV/outdoor industry hookup is inevitable, and the door is wide open, though nobody saw it.”

Motorcycling is now a silent sport. [Cake 0 Emission]“The Vintagent/Motorcycle Arts Foundation’s next exhibition at the Petersen Museum this April will be called Electric Revolution. We’re witnessing history right now, it’s a big turn of the wheel to where the motorcycle industry was in 1900, with different technologies competing for dominance. Then it was steam, electric, and petrol, now its petrol, electric, and hydrogen. We’ve never seen this kind of activity in the motorcycle industry in our lifetime – basically it’s been a downhill slide from the 1960s in sales. Today there are hundreds of small e-Bike makers trying to be the next Apple…which means there will the a Kodak and a Polaroid too, giants that seemed to big to fail, but did. We’re watching history being made.”Easy in, easy out. [Cake 0 Emission]

8 Comments

Memo to the Cake bakers: phone up Dorresteyn (whereabouts currently unknown) and find out why his Alta Motors failed. Talk to Eric Buell, and to Lee Conn and Brian Case of Motus. Developing onesy-twosies of anything is relatively easy. Building a robust and sustainable product pipeline with high-quality after-sales support is quite another. Who wants to be the next Cyclone? Munch? CCM? Brammo? As autonomous vehicles begin to enter the roadways in the next decade, motorcycles are increasingly seen (along with cyclists and pedestrians) as “vulnerable road users.” This reality–and the move into electric motorcycles by Honda and the other incumbents–creates enormous challenges for the start-ups. My best wishes to Cake, even though the bikes remind me of the Van Tech kits of the 1960s–just add a Hodaka 100 engine and a few hours of assembly and you’ve got a ‘dirt bike’….

Motorcycling has to be the hardest industrial business, because those who enter it are idealists and enthusiasts – they have to be. Sadly, like artists, motorcycle enthusiasts are not always the most hard-headed or practical. Derek Dorresteyn had the sense to hand over the business end of Alta to professionals, but that didn’t guarantee success. And then there’s the issue of Harley-Davidson’s very public courting of the company, which effectively scared off other suitors/investors, as it seemed a done deal (that’s how it was presented anyway, even here on TheVintagent). But H-D did NOT invest in Alta, and during negotiations got to know exactly how long Alta’s cash would last, while cock-blocking any other investors. By coincidence, when it was announced H-D was going to build its own R&D facility in Silicon Valley rather than invest in Alta, it was only a month or so before Alta ran out of cash. Am I reading this right? That’s how it appears to me, and I’m open to be being corrected if I’m wrong.

Unlike Alta, Cake is delivering and selling out its limited runs of clever, beautiful toys. Their bike is a very different animal to Alta, which was intended to compete head-on with gas-bikes in motocross, and was starting to hit the podium doing exactly that. Electric horses for courses. I don’t know what Cake’s long-term strategy is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they release a street bike next year: the barrier is so low, the reward so potentially high. Perhaps selling inexpensive, light, and fun e-Bikes, and building from there, is the path to the success?